Joslin Bingham was known simply as ‘Frisco’ and became one of the most celebrated performers in Paris during the Jazz Age of the 1920s and then replicated his success in London in the 1930s. He was a jack of all trades, a fixer and a man behind the scenes who helped many black artists in Paris and London including Josephine Baker, Bricktop and Adelaide Hall.
Tag Archives: Cafe de Paris
Tommy Ladd
Tommy Ladd had many loves and many different dancing partners. In addition to being a famous acrobatic dancer he was also a singer. Much of his early life is a mystery and establishing his later life and career is made doubly difficult because there was another American actor also named Tommy Ladd active at about the same time. After a glittering career in Europe, he finally settled down in California, where he came from, with his wife, the comedienne Helen Boice.
The Cafe de Paris, Paris
The Café de Paris in Paris was in its day, during the Jazz Age, world famous. It was undoubtedly the most salubrious, the most expensive and the most admired restaurant in Paris. A landmark for the gourmets and fashionables not just of Paris, but worldwide, it became part of a mini-gastronomic empire of four exclusive venues.
The White Lyres
The White Lyres
One of the first Jazz Bands to organize in Paris after the armistice following the end of World War 1 was the White Lyres. The two founding members were the Americans Bill Henley and Kelvin Keech and other members fluctuated throughout its existence. The band performed in London, Paris, the south of France, Turkey, Egypt and the rest of Europe but by 1925 it had dissipated, with both Bill Henley and Kel Keech fronting their own bands and going their separate ways.
Chez Victor
Chez Victor
One of the most exclusive members-only night-club in London in the mid to late 1920s was Chez Victor, owned and run by the Italian Victor Perosino. It had a glittering, but short, 4 year career becoming‘a popular haunt with the gilded youth and flapperdom’ before it was targeted by the police and closed down in early 1928. Victor moved across the Channel and with noticeable panache re-opened various other Chez Victor’s in Paris and elsewhere. But Victor’s story, and his deportation, hide a scandal that eventually became public in 1932
